Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:44AM
from the just-go-straight-to-800 dept.

alphadogg writes "The IEEE this week launched a study group to explore development of a 400Gbps Ethernet standard to support booming demand for network bandwidth. Networks will need to support 58% compound annual growth rates in bandwidth on average, the IEEE claims, driven by simultaneous increases in users, access methodologies, access rates and services such as video on demand and social media. Networks would need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabit per second by 2020 if current trends continue, the organization says."

When it comes to end users, gigabit is good for users that need to move large files, but 100baseT is plenty for the majority of desktop connections. I have many users that wouldn't notice if they were on a 10mb link because all they do is email and access a few lightweight browser-based apps.

However, on the server side of things, we struggle with only having gigabit. Unless you have a full mesh network, you need to think in terms of core enterprise infrastructure where the backbone could be handling transfe

It also remains to be seen whether the IEEE wants to go after some of the non-ethernet interconnects with this one, to try to get ethernet into use for larger-than-single-chassis interconnection of things that are usually confined to single boxes and 'internal' busses.

Your end user probably doesn't even need 1GbE; but his boring cheapo desktop probably has an 8(if 2.0) or 16(if 3.0) GB/s PCIe connector available for adding a graphics card. Hypertransport or QPI are faster still.

If one had the desires of people building larger-scale closely interconnected systems in mind, a very, very, very fast flavor of ethernet(with convenient ethernet features not generally available on internal busses, like the more sophisticated switching and routing capabilities); but enough speed to serve as an interconnect for a rack full of blade modules with virtualized storage and networking, or NUMA across all blades, or both, could be quite handy.

Such features have been available for a while in proprietary busses from the very expensive supercomputer outfits; but the IEEE may be looking to move in to that area with at least certain flavors of ethernet....

This is for enterprise and ISPs. Most of the equipment that uses this kind of bandwidth just splits it up and sends it on its way. Imagine the trunks that connect ATT to Sprint... They aren't going anything with the data but routing it. Check out this switch, and it's an old one: http://www.tech.proact.co.uk/foundry/foundry_bigiron_rx16_switch.htm [proact.co.uk]

Most of us will never see even one. How many of us have even seen a 10G link?

I have. Many of you working in core IT will soon if you haven't already. They are all over the place in the heart of the biggest networks. This is because of the way common network architecture is done. Most networks at major corporations or institutions have a central core of some sort where all the VLANs run. That core is typically carrying traffic from most of the network segments all over the company. Sure, local traffic out at

If you're trying to compare 100GigE and above to single SSD drives, then you don't operate in the technical space these speeds are built for at this time.

Even corporate backbones bump into bottlenecks on occasion and I assure you that top end SANs can easily push that much data over a single interface considering they might have hundreds of drive in a massive array with caching technology that can bump performance even higher. And that's not considering if the drives are SSDs themselves.

I would definitely have use for this, 1Gbps ain't nearly enough. 10Gbps would probably suffice, but those devices are horribly, horribly expensive and no one here in Finland seems to sell em for home-users at all.

Even SSD drives couldn't send data fast enough for this. Most of my customers still use 100baseT. Some have upgraded to gigabit. I see very little use for this outside of large data centers,

1) Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949
2) I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year. - Editor of Prentice Hall business books, 1957
3) There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. - Ken Olsen, 1977
4) We will never make a 32-bit operating system. - Bill Gates, 1989*
5) I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most imp

Yes and no. Shiny is a big part of it, but look at what we're streaming live that we weren't five years ago. Netflix is the big 'un, but music services like Pandora eat their share too. Then we also have cloud services - Chrome OS being a prime example of exactly how much the cloud can do now. Games have hopped on the bandwagon too with always-on DRM or server-side processing. Many traditional PC tasks have been moved to the LAN or WAN. Even for users that still do everything on the desktop, backing up to t

And next up is lossless. FLAC and PNG already have it covered for audio and photo but personally I'm itching for lossless video all the way from camera to eyeball and every transcoding, editing, transmitting and storage step in between. In 8k.

When we get to streaming 8k 3D lossless video to every person in the world, that is when the bandwidth rise will entirely flatten out. At least that's my prediction.

I base that assumption on the idea that I don't see anything currently out there more intensive than video, but then again, maybe we'll have invented transporter imaging technology and be sending high resolution maps of every atom in someone's body around the net. So I leave open the idea that I could be wrong about the curve ending.

You it's all just shiny, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.

Now if you excuse me, I'll go and install that CentOS VM from the DVD image which downloaded in under an hour, listen to some streaming music and perhaps watch something on iPlayer this evening.

Facetiousness aside, the increase in capacity is great. I can easily share huge files with far-flung co-workers, upload/download whole VM images to IAAS providers, watch video on the net and a whole host of other things.

Oh, and finally, have you seen how fast "download all headers and articles" goes these days on even a busy usenet group? I remember doing that over a modem and it's much better now.

Yes, yes, higher bandwidth is nice because we can now download what we had to wait for for hours in mere seconds. But did that really increase the data volume? That's like saying increasing the pressure in the water faucet makes us cleaner because we can now more easily wash ourselves, since we needn't collect the drops in a bucket anymore but can just turn on the faucet and wash ourselves. Do you wash yourself more just because more water is available?

Is it me or is the amount of information, when I look back through the history of the internet, that I get out of the 'net pretty much the same, just the traffic goes up?

I don't think you really considered the growth of information that is accessible now. In the mid or late 90s, we were still paying by check (and getting cancelled checks back!) - now we can take a picture of the check with our phone and deposit it that way. Back then, all of your government and utilities (and most businesses) relied on snail mail and paper forms - now there are some things where a paper form isn't even available. I dare say that almost every document that used to be faxed is now transferred

In the US they are still the primary way to pay. Even if I pay "online", the payment is often in the form of a check. For vendors that aren't signed up in their system, the bank even sends a check out via snail mail. For bank transfers, a ACH is often used, which is basically just an e-check.

In the US they are still the primary way to pay. Even if I pay "online", the payment is often in the form of a check. For vendors that aren't signed up in their system, the bank even sends a check out via snail mail. For bank transfers, a ACH is often used, which is basically just an e-check.

Who pays for this?

Cheques still exist in Britain. I think I use about one a year, although I probably pay in about 5. However, most businesses avoid accepting them where they can. The costs to deal with them are quite high, both in bank charges and staff time, and the clearing time is lost interest. I don't think shops accept them any more, but it's still an option (although discouraged) for paying bills and making charitable donations. It's a pretty normal way to pay an independent tradesman (plumber,

The only reason I use checks anymore is because of mistakes made by others. I have "saved" a few hundred dollars in the past few years because some business claimed I didn't pay my bill on time, and the only thing linking me to them was a check with a note saying something like "gas bill".

When I pay electronically, it does not show up as the business charging me, it shows up as whichever credit-card processing system they use. And unless I want to take them to court to get a warrant to force the other co

I don't have that reason, as the business name shows up on the bank statement, along with the reference string given with the transaction (usually an account number, but it's easy to set to 'concert ticket' if paying back a friend, for example). It's the same whether I send or receive money.

The only reason I use checks anymore is because of mistakes made by others.

I have another reason for paying by check. It's because I'm forced to by idiotic government agencies that are still stuck in the past. For example, I just got my Minnesota license plate renewal form mailed to me. It said I can pay online electronically or mail in a check. I go online and I'm told that I will be charged a "handling fee" of $2.95 if I pay electronically. What a bunch of clowns must work at the DMV! Since when do you wa

Fax machines are still used in some fields because their acceptance as legally-binding copies of signed contracts has already been tested in the courts and case law / precedents already established. This has not yet occurred for
"electronic signatures" [wikipedia.org], so the legal validity of electronically signed contracts is not as well established in courts of law, at least in the USA..
There are also privacy issues, and the risk and susceptibility of interception when transmitting unencrypted sensitive information

I have a fax number for the increasingly-small volume of faxes I need to send (and less frequently, receive) for the reasons you describe. Even then, my faxes go out and are received via email. I imagine there are niche users who use faxes all the time, but there is no question that overall volume is declining in favor of internet-based systems.

I can't cite it, so it never happened, but the transfer of data, its more intensive examples, benefits corporations and governments and corporations and governments only. Human to human contact, such as voice calls, were promised to be ubiquitous and free because what worth corporations would derive from digital technology's rapid growth dwarfed what benefit an individual might. Instead, a text message is given charge by the character. An international call is distinguished from a local one. Maybe somone sm

I've been with several carriers and have never had a text message charged by the character... as far is billing goes, I either sent/received a message or I didn't. There's also plenty of ways to have free voice or video calls (including internationally) if you're willing to use a computer headset instead of a phone. People still cling to the old ways, so companies do too... including billing for the old ways.

I appreciate the accuracy you address. Text by the character was my memory from a carrier in Los Angeles in 2005. And I live outside the US and benefit from Skype, Google's clients and FaceTime, so the very trend I call to question is observed by the premise I frame somewhat. But what compelled me to post what I did was the attention granted to public and reported technological advances versus its shadow? Its scrutiny? Thanks for replying.

' Networks will need to support 58% compound annual growth rates in bandwidth on average, the IEEE claims, driven by simultaneous increases in users, access methodologies, access rates and services such as video on demand and social media. Networks would need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabit per second by 2020 if current trends continue, the organization says."

Just looking at the current rate of growth and extending it out indefinitely is clearly absurd. Exp

As of my post there were 8 posts, all pessimistic either stemming from "they will never be able to do it" or "customers wont want to upgrade" or "most of my customers are still 100mb, and thats all anyone will ever need"

Who are you people? This is a cool and exciting new technology. Since when did this become a website full of luddites? (and seriously, the "100mb/640k is enough for everybody" people can go fuck yourselves)

I'm already using 100G, at work at least. I'm expecting to move to 400G (OTU5 on the transport side, carrying a 400GbE payload) within the next 3-5 years.I expect the pessimists are the 'MSIE' types and 'HTML programmers'. This is a real thing that we are really going to need soon.

I probably shouldn't say who because sometimes I'm a dick.I work for a large telecom company and I do long haul fiber optic network planning. Layer 1 and 2 stuff, mostly servicing wholesale orders from other telecoms and our own internal needs to connect big routers, legacy Sonet networks, or large enterprise customers with serious bandwidth needs.It's pretty safe to say that AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink, Zayo, Time Warner Telecom and any other national level carrier in the US has already been deploying

I don't know if it qualifies as a luddite, but demand has actually been less than I expected. When I in 1993 saw "The 7th Guest" shipping on 2 CDs for a whopping gigabyte, I would have thought the games and video we see today would take many, many terabytes. But with much more powerful computers and much better compression you can deliver so incredibly much more in a gigabyte. 10 -> 100 Mbit was wonderful, 100 Mbit -> GigE was luxury and 10G... well honestly I don't feel the need even if it was reason

I think we're approaching the point where "How much bandwidth do you have?" will be like asking "How big are your water pipes?" Don't know, but plenty to cook and shower and run a washing machine and water the lawn.

You generally have no choice of water companies. Asking "how big are your water pipes" is silly because you never had a choice of pipes, so it never mattered, and you never had a choice of pipe providers. If the water companies were all for-profit and there was some (limited) competition and not only was it metered, but you had to pay pipe rental based on your diameter, then yes, people would know their pipe size and discuss it with others, and compare in the marketplace.

Cool tech is trumped by "but what does it mean to me". I'm playing with 100 Gb at work as well. Though it would be at least 10 years before 400 Gb made it to the desktop. I haven't seen any home equipment that uses 10 Gb yet, and even if it did, the rest of a home machine couldn't push bits that fast. And with a 10 Mb Internet, it doesn't do me any good. 1Gb will be about all we'll see in the home for a while, and that's good enough for any current use.

Why is over $300 "absurdly expensive" and under it not absurdly expensive? Seems really arbitrary. You can get an X520-T2 (dual port 10GBASE-T) for under $700.

But the simple answer is supply and demand. The only people who really need 10GbE (other than network carriers) is in the datacenter. Especially in highly virtualized workloads and extra especially when we're carrying storage and network traffic on the same 10GbE link(s). I guess you don't remember how insanely expensive 1GbE was when it first

Because I can buy 10 1GB/s cards for less than $100. No, they're not Intel cards. But how much demand is there for standalone Ethernet cards anymore? There's probably more market for them in the SMB sector than there is for home users, I'd wager.

And no, I really don't remember how insanely expensive 1gigE was when it hit the market. I first started getting gigE equipment in about 2001, 2002 - which was basically right after it was commercially available/mass produced. It was only a year or two old at the ti

Why just 400Gbps if they figure they need 1Tbps by the year after next?

It's down to what is possible in the next few years. 100G was originally implemented as 4 lanes of 25Gbit/s, which was challenging on the electronics side. There is also now a cheaper technology with 10 lanes of 10Gbit/s. To get further you need both more parallelism and higher speed serialization-deserialization. However, increasing either of these numbers comes with a cost. 400G looks possible with 16 lanes of 25Gbit/s, but an increase to 25 x 40Gbit/s would be very difficult indeed. Here's a link to a NA

Not needed for desktop- as many have said, most have 100mb at home and wouldn't see a difference between that and GigE.But infrastructure that was blazing fast 10 years ago with 100 users is now crawling at a snail's pace with 5000 users.

Usage per device has gone up quite a bit, which has an impact.The increase in the number of connected devices has had an impact.Add the two together....Yeah, current network infrastructure is not sufficien

Moving uncompressed HD video (4:2:2 10-bit) requires about 1.5 Gbps, so I am very happy to see the ability to carry 266 professional video streams in one 400 GbE connection in the broadcast plant.

UHDTV1 (sometimes incorrectly called 4K) resolution at 60 fps requires 12 Gbps for 4:2:2 10-bit uncompressed, so it already jumps into 40 GbE connections. I have to admit I am not sure if we will see uncompressed 4K very often even in production, but potentially a visually lossless codec around 1 Gbps would make a